22 ' Philo M. Buck, Jr. 



England, and it was only Elizabeth's military power that saved 

 England from annihilation.^*' 



But to proceed to the detailed stvidy of each canto : — 



In Canto i Arthur (Leicester) and Guyon (Sussex, as before) 

 as they travel together meet Britomart. Guyon, apparently without 

 reason, tries a fall wath the stranger knight and is overthrown. 

 But he bore himself so well " that mischievous mischance his life 

 and limbs did spare." 



We have seen before, in Book II, that at the beginning of her 

 reign, Sussex' loyalty to Elizabeth was suspected as he had been 

 an active partisan of Queen Mary I. But it did not take him 

 long to rehabilitate himself and to make himself one of the most 

 trusted of Elizabeth's advisers. There are also other events in 

 his life that caused a slight disagreement between him and the 

 Queen. In 1566 he had obstructed the Leicester marriage pro- 

 ject, and had advocated warmly the proposal to marry the Queen 

 to the Archduke Charles; and in 1571, he had been a warm sup- 

 porter of the Alengon marriage treaty. Both these offenses had 

 won him not a little disfavor on account of his officiousness, as 

 Elizabeth had styled it. 



L'pton's comment on this passage is interesting. He regards 

 Guyon as the Earl of Essex, and this conflict with Britomart as 

 one of Essex's quarrels with the Queen. This I have already 

 shown to be improbable.^' 



At this point, the three companions behold Florime! rushing by 

 pursued by a hideous forester. The forester is probably the Irish 

 rebels who gave Elizabeth so much trouble ; and Florimel, Eliza- 

 beth as we shall see. Guyon and Arthur both set off in chase of 

 Florimel hoping " to win thereby most goodly meede, the fairest 

 dame alive." Certainly Elizabeth was to the courtier poet, Spen- 

 ser, the only one entitled to this praise. Britomart, however, is 

 unmoved by the distress of a mere woman, and after waiting for 

 a while for the knights to rejoin her, goes off on her own quest. 

 Timias, more thoughtful than either Guyon or Arthur, pursues 



^^ Under Canto xii will be found another possible explanation of this 

 incident. 



^ l^idc supra, p. 170. 



180 



